


as it was

by JoanofArc



Series: darejones [8]
Category: Daredevil (TV), Jessica Jones (TV), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Defenders (Marvel TV)
Genre: F/M, and i'm going to give it to them damn it, i'm emotional over these two again send help, there's smut but it's not the focus of the story, they're soft and they deserve all the good things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-16
Updated: 2019-04-16
Packaged: 2020-01-15 04:25:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18491311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoanofArc/pseuds/JoanofArc
Summary: matt and jess. on working together, outside the bedroom and within.or, what happens when two people who do not think they deserve love find it anyway.





	as it was

bloody seems to be matt murdock's natural state. there's liquid, like the booze in jessica's glass, glistening amber in the dying sunlight. then there's solid, her fingers curled around the back of the chair, pressing so hard into the wood that it threatens to split. solids break, that's the nature of things. there's gas, too, the shallow inhale, or her breath turning into ghostly fumes in winter. it's spring now. it's getting warmer. matt murdock is still bloody.  
  
sometimes, she feels like for him, coming to her after a particular rough night is like coming to the confession booth. he'll stagger through her door all bruised and raw and take all the anger she gives him with a smile on his lips. sometimes, it feels like she's holy fucking communion, because he buries his face in the crook of his neck and pants out the name of his god, and she wonders when did she turn from anathema to ichor. her veins still burn with mortality. the bruises blossoming on her skin are still purple.  
  
jessica has never been particularly religious, but she hears him praying sometimes, latin rolling off his tongue in waves, and it sounds like a chant as old as time itself. like a spell. she's taken many bodies to her bed, but never like this. never more than once, never to the point where the faceless shadow knows her name and the scar behind her ear. matt does, but that comes as a surprise to absolutely no one. matt has always lived his life unconcerned by the trivial. or maybe, basking in it, he is as good as a liar as she is. funny, how it takes two liars to make up one truth.  
  
"she didn't tell you the full story," matt says, staggering out of her bedroom after her (admittedly jittery) client has left.  
  
jessica lifts her eyes from the papers on her desk to raise an eyebrow at him, but gives him a grunt instead of actually answering.  
  
"i don't think the husband is in the wrong here."  
  
"i know."  
  
"you do?" that damn smirk is back, as he lets his body fall into the chair in front of her desk. the wound on his thigh is clearly still bothering him, judging by the way he leans on his uninjured side, but she's not going to call attention to it if he doesn't. at the very least, she hopes he didn't pull on his stitches again.  
  
"yup," fingers steeped together now, she lets the vowel hang before popping the p, her own lips twitching into an answering grin.  
  
it's a game they play. it's always games they play, because to call them anything else would hit a little too close to home for jessica's comfort. because it's easier to look at him now, dishevelled and warm with sleep, and forget that it's only been five hours since she had to drag his ass to her place from that alley. and even that, in itself, is a game. where's waldo, if waldo fancied himself the fucking devil and dressed in fetish gear.  
  
"i've been doing this for years, matt," she tells him, because he's pouting at her and it's really distracting. "i know fake crying when i see it. besides, it's his money. she doesn't have any right to it, unless there's a scandal, and he's forced to shut her up."  
  
"but you took the case."  
  
"if i didn't, she'd go somewhere else, and get what she wants. i'm buying time so i can set up a meeting with the husband."  
  
he looks impressed, and she has to admit it does something to her. it's not as much about his approval, because she gives about zero fucks about all that, as it is about someone seeing past the front she puts on for the whole world.

irony is, it's a blind dude seeing through all the bullshit. if she were to believe in god, she'd call it divine intervention. as it is, she just calls it hurricane matthew. 

"you're hot when you're being smart," he says, like it's a fact, and damn him, it actually makes the corners of her lips twitch. he catches on, of course he does, judging by the size of his answering grin. 

"i'm not fucking you, devil boy. you've got an open wound i just sewed shut."

"aww, c'mon. we'll be extra careful."

the wiggle of his eyebrows makes her snort, and then they're both laughing at nine in the morning in her shitty apartment. it's not good - jessica has stopped wishing for good a long time ago - but her life used to be a whole lot worse before matt waltzed in.

it sizzles off into easy silence, her attention back on the files and his on whatever it is he's listening to. he does that too, sometimes. lets his senses stretch out across the city, like a blanket. anyone moves wrong under it gets the devil's full blown rage. sometimes, when she's out in the belly of the city, she wonders if he'd come for her if she did. 

"you think i should stop?"

she blinks, tilts her head to the side, then rolls it a couple times until it pops. she knows a loaded question when she hears one.

"being a pain in my ass? i don't think you can."

the smile he gives is small, but she counts it as a win. with him, she has to. 

"you know what i mean. going out. foggy -" he pauses, grimaces, and jessica watches him as he works his jaw. she's familiar with what foggy thinks, too, but lets matt say it anyway. "foggy's getting better at the whole disapproval thing. but i know what he's like when he's upset. karen hasn't exactly been silent about it when i come bruised to the office either."

like she said, loaded question. jessica knows how much matt values his friends. can get it, even, if she tries a little. but she's never been good at talking about feelings. hers, or anyone's. there's a reason she takes pictures of cheaters for a living, instead of people pleasing. but she's good at reading people. she's good at reading their bodies, the tone of their voice. somehow, she thinks matt counts on it. 

"are you asking me because you need someone to hold your hand and tell you everything's gonna be fine?"

"i'm asking you because you're always honest with me."

she sighs. closes her eyes, breaths deep. the chair she's sitting in groans as she shifts. 

"you're a big boy, matt. maybe it's time you stop looking for this answer in other people. do i think what you do is dumb?  _yeah_. a hundred percent. but it's also the shit you like doing. you don't need me to tell you that, though. you need someone to tell you loud and clear to put down the mask. that it's not the right thing to do. and guess what? it fucking is. you save people."

he smiles again, but it's far away. she, too, furrows her brows, sighs once more.

"matt."

it's not the first time he asks her. it's not the first time she doesn't give him the answer he's looking for, either, but her apartment is not a church and her desk is not the confessional booth. she cares about morality about as much as he does, which is a lot. but it's also twisted into something that doesn't look like morality most days. there's no code of conduit for supered people they can follow. they are, and aren't, like everyone else. 

_"what do you want?"_

and that's the million dollar question, isn't it? sometimes, it feels like she's the only one who asks him this, because he always gets this startled look on his face. like she's caught him with the hand in the cookie jar.

in all fairness, it always goes downhill from there. 

*

his hand on the small of her back burns. she can feel the heat through the leather and the sweater she's wearing. he doesn't seem to notice - it's all in her head, after all, but she sees the smug grin twitch at the corners of his lips and wonders.

thing is, and that's the big fucking dilemma, she knows his better than most. if she's feeling generous, she can admit that she knows him better than anyone. alive, that is. she's privy to all sides of him, all facets he polishes until they shine, diamond-sharp and deadly. daredevil is a weapon moulded by a man who did not care for the boy beneath. matt murdock is just struggling to do good. sometimes, the two coincide.

"we have to try the paella, baby," she says, making her voice sugary sweet, but matthew catches on, because in an instant he's less devil and more how-can-i-help-you lawyer, all politeness and soft smiles.

(danny said that watching them both act gives him whiplash. jessica told him to fuck off.)

"anything for you, sweetheart."

there's weight behind that promise, but jessica has no time to decipher it. the clack of heels diverts her attention to the woman they have been following. judging by the way matt scrunches his nose (totally not cute,  _focus,_  jones!) the perfume she douched in is more offensive to him than it is to her.

she pats his hand in sympathy. 

he frowns at her.

in the end, matt accepts the husband's gratitude with cordial warmth, while jess nurses her split knuckles. it's better like this, anyway. she's never liked watching people cry. 

the police, too, are far nicer to her when matt is present. 

huh. 

who would have guessed?

*

"what do you want?" she asks him, and gets down on her knees.

*

"hey, asshat!"

asphalt cracks under her feet. two of the seven idiots ganging up on matt turn to her, and that's their mistake, because he moves like a cat, grinning at her in a way that's all devil. they fall down with a thud. the eighth lies unconscious deeper in the alley.

"came to rescue me, miss jones?"

her fist connects with a jaw, and she pushes another body into a wall hard enough for it to send bits of brick flying. matt dodges a hit, going into a crouch and -

"you looked like you were having too much fun, devil boy."

they're russian. one of them swears in a thick accent, barrelling head first into jessica. he hits her, and she knows it'll bruise by the way it knocks all the wind from her lungs. she staggers backwards, and glares hard.

daredevil is busy fighting off two stragglers, so she cracks her knuckles, gritting her teeth through the pain.

this one's got a knife, but he misses, hits the wall, where it remains embedded. she really doesn't feel any remorse in breaking his arm.

"i don't need saving," matt says after, spitting blood, which frankly, totally disproves his statement. she snorts, pushing a hand through her hair to get it out of her face.

that's another thing she's learned about matt murdock. he'd rather die than ask for help - danny and luke offer, but they're always met with a polite dismissal. she thinks it has to do with him going blind so young. how he needs to be in control of everything, because the alternative is too daunting. he guards himself from everyone, and even nelson has to fight to remove the barriers at times. but for her, it's not hard to know what he's thinking.

and she doesn't ask. 

"i'm not here to save you, saint matthew. i don't play those kids of games."

he sees though her lie, like he always does. but it's so deeply ingrained into her, that she's not even trying. truth and lies intermingle at some point, regardless, and she wouldn't know where to start to untangle the mess. in a way, neither of them can lie to each other, and yet they lie to each other the most. somehow, it feels like lying to yourself.

so she crouches down next to one of the unconscious men, peels his jacket off so she can search through his pockets.

"working a case?" it's the lawyer voice, which, juxtaposed with the mask and horns, would make a grown man quiver. not jessica jones. but he's never had that effect on her. maybe, in the beginning, it had frustrated him. now they're just playing pretend, because anything else would be admitting to things neither are ready to admit. they walk a thin line, at the border between something and another, but putting labels on it would make it real, and jessica has dealt with too much to feel secure in reality. 

"i'm not taking his money, if that's what you're asking. i'm looking for an id. probably fake, but i know a guy."

matt has never pretended to approve of some of her contacts. and he doesn't try now, hands on his hips and towering over her crouched down form. but she doesn't tell him how to do his job, and he doesn't tell her how to do hers, even if the unspoken words are there between them, sharp and heavy like the blade of a guillotine.

the night is cool and crisp against her skin, and her lip is split. she still grins up at him triumphantly, even though he can't exactly see it.

and then she stands, brushes the dust off her jeans, and salutes at him with a wink. the bemused shake of his head is the last thing she sees before jumping off into the city.

*

there are rules. 

one. jessica doesn't do dating. 

(matt brings her food in the evening and sometimes in the morning. they go to the farmer's market and have an argument over strawberries, which she wins. they go grocery shopping at two in the morning, where they have another argument over cereals, which she does not win.)

two. she doesn't mix work and play. 

(his fingers in her hair, and his lips crashing against hers. a few feet away, her client's fiance is making out with a guy twice her age. jessica's camera - shiny and new, left on her desk one morning - trapped between their bodies.)

three. as soon as feelings get involved, she's out. 

(he holds her hand. he doesn't need to hold her hand, but their fingers end up clasped more often than not. he kisses her cheek in the morning, before he slips out of her bed to go to his office, where foggy and karen are waiting. there are a couple of his shirts in her closet now, and she wears his hoodie which is not really his anymore. he doesn't call it love. he doesn't need to.)

*

matt is napping on her tiny couch and there's something viscerally intimate about the scene. she's taken to leaving her window open, because he favours crashing at her place after a particularly rough night, and she's not all that good at saying no to him anymore. she's never really been, not on lexi's couch as she was talking about his dad, and not when his mouth is hovering dangerously close to her own.

he's too big for her couch. his legs hang over the armrest and one of his hands is touching the floor. 

he's also awake, because she's intimately familiar with the way his breath changes when he's feigning sleep. she snatches a blanket from her bed and drapes it over him either way.

*

"what do you want?" she asks him, and gets down on her knees. he looks startled, so she reaches for his belt to unbuckle it, letting her fingers brush over the tent in his pants. he moans, and she bites her lip to keep from moaning in return.

his tie is loose and the first buttons of his shirt are unbuttoned, so she can see the way his blush spreads from the tips of his ears down to his chest. he looks positively wrecked, and she hasn't even touched him yet, not really.

there's a bruise turning yellow on his right cheekbone. if she licks her lips, she can still taste his blood on her tongue from when she had coaxed it from his split lip.

its hot. it shouldn't be hot. she's seriously starting to question her sanity, but then she's got the damn belt off and his pants and underwear down and down and - 

yeah. 

_hot._

but she's not touching him, and she can see the way he struggles to stand still, because his dick is right in her face and it looks good enough to eat. 

well. colloquially speaking.

but there's something else in his gaze that makes her shiver. he looks like her like she's the most precious thing in the world and, despite his eyes not managing to pinpoint the exact location of her face, he does a pretty good job at making her heart stutter. which he knows. because he grins.

the fucker. 

"matthew," she's careful to let his name roll off her tongue, like she's tasting it. it's got the same breathy quality to it that the way he says her name sometimes does, when he thinks she's not paying attention. it's a game of omission, really. more about the things they do not say, the things they whisper in the dark, than the things they say outright. like a prayer. 

"what do you want?"

"touch me."

it's a growl, but she's an expect in the pitch of his voice to know it's more plea than command. so she curls her fingers around him, and he lets out a whimper. really, she's never considered moaning like that hot, but she's willing to reevaluate her turn ons because damn. 

his hips twitch forward, and she leans up so she can give an experimental little lick. and then she's got him in her mouth, reminding herself to breathe, his fingers tangled in her hair. he doesn't push, does not try to guide her movement, and she has a feeling that he's using the grip on her hair to ground himself. whatever, she's never been against a little hair pulling. 

she likes doing this. it's a control thing, more than anything else, and the way matt is putty in her hands reinforces the notion. she could tell him to do anything this very moment and he would, but she doesn't. instead, she takes a deep breath and takes more of him in, until he's hitting the back of her throat. 

"jesus... a-ah, jess!" 

she'd smirk, but her mouth is pretty full, so she settles with humming low in her throat, which has him making that wonderful little sound again.

but then he's pulling at her hair, making her lose her grip on his dick, which pops out of her mouth with an obscene, wet sound. it takes him a couple minutes to come back to it, and she has to admit that it's pretty flattering.

the smirk he gives her after, however, holds many promises she's very much excited for. 

"my turn."

his tongue was made to sin. he tugs her upwards and then he's attacking her mouth, walking her backwards until the back of her knees hit something - the bed, her brain supplies hurriedly - and then she's falling backwards unceremoniously. she props herself on her elbows, because there's no way in hell she's gonna miss this show.

there's something distinctly cat-like in the way he moves. at night, as he jumps around hell's kitchen. during the day, suit on and that smile on his lips jessica knew was trouble since the moment she met him. 

now, too. crawling across the bed until he's between her legs, looking ravenous. it makes something inside her flutter, but not from unease.

he doesn't waste time playing around. they make quick work of her clothes, hands knocking against each other and dumb grins when they get a little tangled, but then she's naked, and he's shrugging off his shirt. 

"you always smell so good, jess," he says, once she's back on her elbows watching him, and he uses his index finger to run through her folds. she's wet and willing, but he's unhurried. 

"shut up," she grunts, because she had nothing better to say. 

he grins, but then his mouth is on her and oh - yeah. his mouth was really, truly quite literally made to sin. he's devouring her like she's the last fucking meal, his tongue inside her, nose bumping against her clit. it's all fingers and wet noises and her moans, high and loud, reverberating through his apartment. 

it doesn't take him long to make her fall apart. but, then again, it never does. 

she's still trembling a little when he pushes into her, shallow at first then all at once. 

and in the middle of it all, his hand finds hers, squeezing gently, and she falls apart for another reason altogether. 

*

"jess-"

matt's voice sounds far away on the phone, wind whipped and fragile. she doesn't like it.

it's three in the morning, and his breath is shaky. 

"oh, devil boy..." the exasperation in her voice is underlined with fondness. there's worry there, too, like a sharp tone to an otherwise mild concoction. she knows matt can pick each emotion apart, just like he's picking apart flavours in the food he eats, down to the most insignificant of ingredients. 

there's a groan on the other end. jessica pulls on her jeans, phone pressed between ear and shoulder. 

"what did you do?" 

"i can't hear - jess, i can't... i can't hear."

he's panicking, and to be honest, she's starting to panic too. if he can't hear, his whole world is dark, and that means -

"i'm coming to get you," she tells him, even though it is fruitless. she hasn't flied in ages; has always hated it, the feeling of weightlessness. but he needs her, and she'll be damned if she makes him wait a moment more than she has to.

his apartment is a mess. there's glass shattered everywhere, and her boots make a sickening crunch as she walks over it.

he's pressed himself in a corner, fingers on the ground, most likely feeling for vibrations, and looks pitiful and small. it looks wrong, because matt never looks small. he has a way of commandeering the room, demanding all the attention he can get. he's like a star, and everyone around him circles in his orbit. it's too late now to worry about being burned. (isn't there a thing about how sinners shouldn't be able to touch the divine?)

she kneels next to him, her fingers careful as she wraps them around his arm, but even then he flinches like she's burned him. still, she ignores the way her heart throbs and grabs his hands, tugging them until he's touching her face. he gets the hint, because he runs the pads of his fingers across her cheekbones, up to her browbone, down her nose and to her lips, and finally relaxes a little.

"i can't... i can't hear -" he's almost crying now, and if she could ignore the tightness in her chest before, now it's close to unbearable. so she settles on wrapping her arms around him, pulling him in her lap. he's taller than her, but he doesn't feel like that now. he's struggling to find her hand, so she helps him, and then he circles her wrist, jamming a finger between the fragile bones there. checking her pulse. grounding himself.

since the moment they met, she's seen matt in all stages of wrecked. she's seen him grinning, bloody and bruised, just before he passes out. she's seen him coming undone beneath her, fingers grasping at skin and his mouth impossibly soft. she's seen him vulnerable, and she's seen him with his guards up, no matter what suit of armour he's got on. and it's a little unnerving. to know him so completely, so fully. that she's the first person he called when he's in a situation like this one. they've been doing this for almost eight months now, the whole song and dance, and she trusts him more than she trusts herself at times.

the realisation of what this all means hits her like a ton of bricks. even without his hearing, matt knows, pressed as he is to her, and pulls slightly back, trying to find her face with his unseeing gaze and failing miserably.

"jess? what's wrong?"

jessica huffs, because even so utterly pained, he still checks on her, and lets out the breath she hadn't realised she was holding. bringing his hand to her face once again, this time pressing his palm to her mouth.

_"i love you."_

maybe it's the fact that he can't hear her that gives her courage. or maybe she's just too tired of letting kilgrave still lay claim over parts of herself, parts she hadn't even dared to touch in fear of bringing him back. but matt's face scrunches in confusion, and she huffs out a laugh.

she gets him to bed and calls claire, and then all of a sudden the apartment is bustling with people. foggy gets there first, with a blonde chick in tow, then miss page. danny is all bruised when he bursts through the door, followed by luke, who mysteriously doesn't have a shirt on. they both smile sheepishly back at claire when she glares.

and - as if she hasn't had enough startling realisations for one night - she finds that she doesn't mind all of them here. maybe this is what family's supposed to be all about.

until danny says something about some mystical bullshit, and she throws a pillow at him.

and still, with all of them fussing over matt like this, she wonders how can he possibly think that he doesn't belong - that he doesn't have people around him willing to go to the end of the world for him. 

"just make sure he doesn't do anything stupid, and you're good," claire smiles, pushing a reluctant danny out the door. nelson is passed out on the couch, and his lady friend is trying to get him to move. she waves both women them off.

"pretty sure he can't do stupid shit in his sleep."

"you'd be surprised." claire's grin is knowing, and it steals one of jessica's in return.

matt startles when she climbs into bed with him, nelson groggily on his way home, but settles back down when she shoves her hand in his grip. it's not the first time she's slept in his bed. not even the first time she's crashed here without having sex (which, if she's being honest with herself, should have been enough of a sign) but something feels different. lighter and heavier at the same time. the words she had unsaid hanging between them in the shadows. it's new. it's terrifying. it's exciting.

*

"what do you want?" she asks, and he's grinning, calloused digits running down her side. it makes her shiver, and she can barely suppress a moan. he coaxes it into his mouth, licking at hers, and she's breathless, weightless, walking on air. 

"you, jess," he replies, a hushed confession next to her ear. "it's always been you."

**Author's Note:**

> just as it was, baby  
> before the otherness came  
> and I knew its name  
> the drug, the dark, the light, the flame  
> \- hozier, as it was


End file.
